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agricultural land shares in OIC are similar, for Arab group, share in OIC agricultural land is lower
than share in total land.
Regarding the renewable water potential in the OIC by sub-regions, Prof. ALPAS informed the
participants that OIC member countries have 7,261 km3 /year of renewable water resources for
the period 2013-2017 that accounts for 13.3% of the world’s total. Taking into account the fact
that OIC member countries have 28% of the world’s total agricultural area, the majority of the
member countries face water scarcity. At the sub-regional level, renewable water resources
disperse unequally in the OIC. Moreover, the ratio of renewable water resources to the
agricultural land varies considerably among its sub-regions. While Asian group has 71% of the
renewable water resources in the OIC, it possesses 9,965 m3/ha renewable water per hectare of
agricultural land, Arab group owns 4 % of renewable water resources with 554 m3/ha renewable
water per hectare of agricultural land and African Group owns %25 of renewable water resources
with 5,079 m3/ha renewable water per hectare of agricultural land.
Prof. ALPAS concluded his presentation by giving information on the state of food insecurity in the
OIC Member Countries. Prof. ALPAS underlined that, unfortunately, statistics on food security are
available only for 25 of the 57 OIC member countries. They also underestimate food insecurity, as
countries where data is not available face relatively higher levels of hunger. With these limitations
in mind, FAO estimates about 800 million undernourished in the world, slightly down from over
900 million at the beginning of the millennium. 200 million or about quarter of the world’s hungry
are in the OIC member countries.